More bullshit rules from Blackwell...
From Elites TV
Ohio Recount: County Election Board Chair Disputes comments from spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell
12/14/04 4:45pm EST
-snip-
Yesterday, I reported on a phone interview with Carlo LoParo, a
spokesperson for Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. One of
the items LoParo repeatedly stressed was that 'each county in Ohio
has an election board consisting of two Republicans and two
Democrats' and that each board 'unanimously voted to certify their
election results on December 6th.'...he urged me to contact these
Democratic party chairs if I 'had any doubt' as to the conduct of
the elections in any of Ohio's 88 county's, including oft discussed
Franklin and Hamilton counties. So, I contacted Hamilton County's
Board of elections Chair (Franklin's board did not return calls),
but
his comments did not line up with those coming out of the
Secretary of State's office.
-snip-
Burke also suggested that there were many more ballots that were not
counted even though he felt that they should have been. 'On just
provisional ballots 1100 were not counted in Hamilton County because
of confusing information that sent people to the wrong precinct.
In
past years it would not have mattered because their ballots would
have been accepted, but the Secretary of State made a very
restricted ruling regarding provisional ballots and as a result,
this election is the first election that votes like these were not
counted...an additional
451 voters were disenfranchised when they
arrived at the correct polling place, but voted at the wrong table (some locations served more than one precinct by using seperate
tables).
-snip-
Initially, a week ago, according to Burke, the Secretary of State
sent out an order requiring that party witnesses to the recount had
to have a designation note signed by the candidate. Thus, for the
Democratic Party's 88 witnesses (one for each Ohio County's recount)
John Kerry had to personally sign their letter designating them as
the party's official witness, and the Ohio State Democratic Party
and Senator Kerry had spent a fair amount of time, effort and money
working to get that accomplished. Today,
Blackwell backed off on
that requirement significantly, allowing the certification of party
witnesses to be signed off by local or state party organizations.
http://www.elitestv.com/pub/2004/Dec/EEN41bf5ef4d50b2.htmlNotice that Blackwell backs off the rules after Kerry signs 88 letters. I wonder if B* had to personally sign 88 letters for recount witnesses!